Severing Sanguine: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 2 (24 page)

I just wanted to go back to my basement, back to my cave, where I could be closed-in and safe on my bed staring at the door.

Not here… not with other people.

“Sanguine…” I heard Crow suddenly whisper. In my mind I found his smiling face.

“Yeah?” I whimpered to him.

“Sit up.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?” Crow whispered to me.

“I can’t move,” I said to him and that was the truth. Something was keeping me down, something was preventing me from sitting up and letting the Legion know I was here. I didn’t know exactly what it was – I think I just wanted to sit in my basement in the quiet and I knew if I sat up I wouldn’t get that. That Jasper would bury me the rest of the way if I disobeyed him.

Or maybe it was none of those things – maybe it was the hope lost, the submission that was now my being, maybe it was my sadness.

Maybe it was because I was a scared coward and I didn’t want anything to change around me anymore. I had had enough change.

I just wanted my basement… I just want to go home.

“Sanguine… sit up.”

“I can’t… I can’t move.”

When Jasper finally grabbed my tangled black hair and pulled me up off of the grave I was in full panic attack. I had breathed in enough dirt to make my mouth dry and raw, and every breath I was inhaling was filling my lungs with ash.

He let me be as I tried to catch my breath, my eyes so wide my eyeballs hurt and my hands clenched over my neck and head. With every sharp inhale my mind tried to clamp onto reality but it was like grasping onto broken ice after you’ve already fallen in. I kept slipping back into panic induced delirium and madness.

“Get a hold of yourself…” Jasper snapped and he smacked me upside the head. “Get out, I’m putting the boy in.”

My chest burned, my mouth open and sucking at the air. I managed to weakly crawl out and I collapsed beside the grave.

Jasper left me on the ground clawing for breath and picked up Cooper. He put him in and started burying him. I stayed laying, coughing and breathing, and trying to get a hold of my head.

“Basement?” I hated the weak cry that rolled out of my mouth, a weak susurration with no pride to give strength to the words. Just weakness, just submission.

“Please?” I whined.

Jasper turned around. I realized the visit by the Legion had spooked him. He stared at me for a moment and I saw the apprehension; it was painted in bright colours all over his gaunt face.

What did the Legion want?

What did the Legion want, Jasper?

“Yeah, go… go back inside, I’ll finish with him,” Jasper said slowly. “Go on, you’re allowed.

I nodded and stumbled to my feet, chains still binding me though nothing compared to the chains that bound me internally. Without another word I turned… and went back to my basement.

Sanguine age 19

Every year I used to say to myself – it can’t get any worse than this.

And every year I am proven wrong.

As each summer brings the stifling heat; I find myself wishing for winter.

But when the heat turns into the biting cold that turns my fingertips blue.

I wish only for the grey sun that I can no longer see.

Sometimes I wonder if the world outside of this basement has ended,

And if I could break these chains, I wouldn’t be free,

But then I remember the devil still has be bound and chained,

And that devil is me.

Sometimes my thoughts would race a mile a minute, like a wound up car spinning in circles until it eventually slowed down and became still. Other times I had no solid thoughts, just images or past events that would surface like a hand brushing back the toxic film on stagnant water… curious to see what lies underneath but once you saw the brown sludge you would only wish for the film to cover it once again.

All I had were my thoughts now – because I was chained by the neck to an anchor coming from the wall behind my bed. I was chained and unable to see anything but the tinged-blue darkness that my eyes had grown accustomed to. The slit between the window frame and the boards had been covered, the hole I had made in the middle of the board had been filled and I was nothing but a celldwelling monster that hid from even the bluelamp Jasper carried when he wanted to fuck me. I saw no more crows. I had no more friends not even the birds.

Jasper didn’t come down here to ramble about legionaries spying on him anymore, because he was more afraid of me when he was high. He only came down to have sex with me, usually when the boys he had upstairs were too injured from his appetite or perhaps when one died.

Sometimes I would hear him dragging their bodies over the greywaste dirt outside my window, sometimes, if I listened carefully, I could hear his shovel strike the ground with a metallic clank – but mostly I heard nothing but the own conversations in my head.

Crow was my only company.

I looked beside me and saw him staring at me. He sits on the edge of my bed with that Cheshire smile on his face and his eyes squinting like the happy cat I hadn’t seen since my childhood. He would sit there for days without speaking and stare at me with that glaring smile. He always wore his long coat though sometimes he dressed in colourful shirts and pants. I don’t know why, perhaps I was just experimenting with this demon who lived inside of my head.

My only friend.

I remember I almost had another friend at one time.

But I killed him.

Cooper would’ve been eleven years old.

I am nineteen… I am a man now though I am a man in appearance only, inside I feel like an animal most days or the walking corpse of a young boy who had never been shown how to die.

My only friend was this demon sitting on the edge of my bed, watching me and watching me, though most of the time I didn’t engage him… because he rarely had kind things to say.

Crow wanted me to keep fighting Jasper. Crow wanted me to bite, scream, and stop letting him fuck me so easily.

My eyes rose to the cobwebbed rafters of the ceiling as I heard one of the boys upstairs scream, followed by Jasper’s muffled yell back.

But I had no fight left in me, it was only in the throes of the most painful or mind fucking turmoil did Crow join himself with me and actually fight back.

I had never been strong… not even when I was a child. I had a weak mind filled with a need to be loved and talked to. That was my weakness, but unfortunately it was what had ended me up here.

I had been in this basement for eleven years now.

Eleven years.

Another scream above me and I wondered if I would hear another body get dragged across the ground but I only heard whimpering in tandem with the speed of Jasper’s thrusts. I knew the rhythm, if it wasn’t stuck inside of my head, whirling around like that wound up car, it was in my dreams.

Sometimes he brought them down here, just to torture me. Because he knew there was little else that drew me into madness. When he brought them down I closed my eyes and clawed my ears until they bled, but I could still hear their crying before they faded out and went into their own minds.

I didn’t know their names but I knew there were three of them. A little one that was six with black hair, and two blond-haired brothers that would hold the victim’s hands for them. I didn’t want to learn their names. I think if that last step was made to humanize them to me I might just bite my wrists until the blood shot to the other side of the room.

My eyes stared at the door as I heard Jasper and the boys above me. Then slowly my eyes closed and I felt my fingers break away from my present thoughts. I slipped inside my head to find the only oasis I had and I stayed there.

Sometimes I stayed there for days, until thirst and hunger brought me back. I would close my eyes and I wouldn’t sleep… but I wouldn’t move, talk, or do anything but stare at that door. That was usually when Jasper would come to throw the scraps of food at me and the bottle of water… that was the time he would fuck me too.

Always on my hands and knees now; he didn’t trust his face near mine anymore. He never knew when Crow would come and make me strong.

The next thing my mind comprehended was the very thing I had been thinking about. My awareness came to me with the painful pressure in my backside, and Jasper’s familiar groans as he pounded himself into me.

I was grown now… I had pubic hair, a beard unless he shaved it to make me look younger, long willowy limbs with leg hair, underarm hair, and a dick bigger than his. But even though I was nineteen I had absolutely no desire to do any of the things he did. I had never touched it except to go to pee in the bucket I had beside my bed. There was no part of me that wanted anything to do with sex… sex was disgusting and that was all there was to it.

My eyes were fixed on my filthy grey pillow now, not washed once in those eleven years. I could see my tangled black hair flying back and forth as Jasper thrusted into me. I didn’t struggle unless I had already been torn open and it hurt more. I think perhaps I knew that if he got off on me… he might leave the kids upstairs alone.

Jasper moaned and I felt his body tighten up as he started to cum. I grimaced at this part and waited for it to be over.

Then he pulled out and I got down on my back, the sounds of chains around me. Immediately I started digging his cum out of me with my fingers.

Jasper lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of the bed. Crow only inches away from him, no longer smiling and no longer staring at me. He glared at Jasper with his red eyes burning suns, urging me with desperate sadism to lunge and attack him.

No… I can’t do that. He locked the door behind him and if I killed Jasper now the boys upstairs would starve to death and so would I.

This was my life – I had accepted that years ago.

I waited for him to leave but he continued to sit there smoking his cigarette, filling the disgusting unclean basement I had been inside with the rancid smell of cigarettes. It was better than the meth smell though it lingered longer.

Jasper reached into his pocket and tossed me a piece of meat. I picked it up and though it was covered in dirt and lint I ate it.

It was tender and soft, melting in my mouth. “Did one of the boys die?” I asked knowing this meat had come from a child not an adult.

“A new one, you never met her,” Jasper replied quietly. He had gotten older too, his curly black hair had more than its fair share of silver threads in it and the lines in his face had gotten deeper. The meth had also done him no favours, half of his teeth were gone and the other half were rimmed with black and surrounded by gums that always looked sore.

“Her?”

Jasper chuckled and shook his head. “Short hair, dressed in overalls, it wasn’t a pleasant surprise when I undressed her for the first time. I went to Melchai and found the slaver’s route and I broke his jaw and took my meth back and a hundred dollars for my troubles. What use do I have for a little girl? Her bones are feeding the crows.”

I had no emotions left to feel badly for her, only a foolish wish I had been born a girl just so he would’ve killed me right away too.

“Did she die pure?”

Jasper nodded and I was glad for at least that… Cooper did too, and once you came to Jasper’s farm, that was the only good outcome you could hope for. Die before he fucked you and made you into an impure monster. Maybe I don’t wish I was born a girl… maybe I just wish I stayed a kid forever so he would stop bringing other little boys home.

Or put them close enough to me that I could kill them… though I had only been able to do that once. Jasper kept the kids out of me and Crow’s reach now.

At the mention of his name Crow’s glaring scowl at Jasper faded, he looked at me and smiled and ran a hand down my leg.

“Is he going to leave soon?” Crow asked.

“I think so,” I replied.

Jasper glanced back at me but he knew I was talking to Crow; he knew all about Crow.

Jasper said nothing to me and continued smoking his cigarette.

“Would you have fucked her?” Jasper suddenly asked.

“No,” I said back.

“I always wondered what your preference would be. Boy or girl?”

“Neither.”

Jasper laughed and got up. “Everyone is attracted to at least one, sometimes both. Though I guess you’ll never know… I always assumed one day you would ask for some time with one of my boys but you seemed to have skipped that stage of being a teenager. I was fucking any man or boy that I could have at nineteen.”

My teeth clenched, even the thought of having sex… even with an adult made me feel sick. I might have control of absolutely nothing but I had control over who I stuck my dick inside and I knew it would be no one – ever.

I wouldn’t… I couldn’t do it and I never would. I would never be like Jasper no matter how old I got.

I don’t know what Jasper was waiting for, perhaps it was just the tightening of my jaw but he got up and let me finish off his cigarette.

My lips sealed the still wet tip of the smoke and I inhaled it into my lungs. My lungs were bad and I had trouble taking deep breaths some days, especially the cold days, but I still took every cigarette he gave me. Even if he made me suck his dick for them, I did it because cigarettes were the only comfort I had now.

And at that silent admission Jasper took two more cigarettes from his tin and turned around on the bed. He spread his legs, exposing his greasy pubic hair and unwashed skin. I knew what he wanted so I turned around too and lowered my head. I took the disgusting piece of flesh into my mouth and paid the price needed to be paid for the cigarettes.

Then he tossed me a lighter after I had finished him off.

“Be careful with it,” Jasper said as I stared at the lighter in awe. It had been so long since I had had a lighter, I felt a shock of almost giddiness go through me.

“I’ll come back for it later. I’m going to Melchai tomorrow, I need supplies.”

I lit the cigarette and wiped his cum off of my shoulder and neck. He didn’t make me take it into my mouth which was one of the few things I was thankful for. I inhaled the smoke to get his filthy dick’s taste out of my mouth and started playing with the lighter.

I reached down and put ol’ Barry beside me to watch. Barry the boy might’ve died long ago with Sami but I still loved that bear. He was the only thing in this world I loved.

I singed the sides of the blanket with my lighter and burned off the imbedded strands of hair that had worked their way into the smelly synthetic cotton. I enjoyed the smell, a different smell from must, age, and the piss and shit in the bucket beside my bed.

The flame was beautiful but it stung my eyes with such a brilliant and blinding elegance I knew for sure if I ever did go outside again I would be blinded by the grey sun. It was transfixing almost and I found myself not letting go of the red trigger.

As the lighter got more hot I ran it along my palms, illuminating the silver scars of when Gill crucified me years ago and when he had held my hand to the stove element. All of these scars were like small stories imprinted on my skin, most of them I wished to forget. Though like the stories of my past were printed in black my brain couldn’t help but memorize every word.

My forearms told my worst stories, my legs did as well… and my groin.

There was no skin on my arms that didn’t have scars on it, every inch leading all the way to my shoulders were covered in silver, pink or a mixture of both. The only parts that remained pure were the areas I couldn’t reach and even some of those places were damaged. When I made Jasper mad he would beat me and a few times he even wielded a stick just to break the skin on my body easier.

I ran the flame over the scarred mosaic that was my forearms and singed them. I found myself holding the lighter on the scar tissue, even when the warm burn turned into searing pain I still held the flame there.

And I watched it; I watched the skin start to constrict just slightly before it started to blacken and break. The smell of burning flesh reaching my nostrils and soon the black and red was sizzling.